Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Welcome to Love Big, Bake Often. I am a stay at home mom to two amazing boys, Jakob and Aiden, wife to a pretty awesome Army man, named Jason. Our life is never dull, the Army has had us moving around the country and in about 6 months we are heading to the West coast for the first time for both of us. We roll with the punches and know that as long as we are together, life is good!I live everyday loving to the fullest, and baking as often as I can. I enjoy baking for others more than anything! My dream is to raise two beautiful, confident, kind boys....while running a small bakery. A girl can dream right?!?

Thursday, January 14, 2010

I have so many things going on in my head right now….and really not capable of putting them down on “paper”.

There is a lot going on in our household…changes happening, Jakob and school, Aiden and his speech (doing much better), Jason coming home in a couple of months (even if it is only for 2 weeks), changes in me – or at least I am working on making some changes….

I apologize for the short post. I am tired tonight….have been spending too much time staying up late watching TV. Such a sad little life I lead.

Monday, January 11, 2010

This is a true Monkey Monday post….we have found this year’s location for Jakob’s birthday party…..drum roll please……MONKEY JOE’S!!

Here is the link. Monkey Joe’s is an indoor bounce house place…filled with slides, bounce rooms, and fun! Lots of fun. They have a small area for the younger kiddos too. Though when we were there this past weekend Aiden refused to go in any of them and spent his time running around the place and pretending to play the video games. But both had so much fun!

On the way home Jakob declared “That’s where I want to have MY party, Mama!!”

Thursday, January 7, 2010

It has been a very long time since I have written a Thoughtful Thursday post…but today I am feeling inspired. I had a really good day. We had a good morning routine, out the door on time, no arguments, had a great day at work, picked up the boys, no problems at school or daycare, had a pretty good dinner, a great tubby time, no fights to get dressed or brush teeth, and no fights going to bed! It was a really good day. And now I am sitting on the couch, watching some random tv show and blogging.

I have been reading a parenting book…which I will get more into on another post…and am trying to better my parenting techniques as what I was doing certainly wasn’t working. I was tired of the constant battles with Jakob, the yelling, the ultimatums, the threats, and none of it working. I don’t want out time together to be spent fighting, battling for power, or for him to be scared of me. Fear is not a parenting style!

So we are trying some new things. Jakob is being given choices – choices he can understand – choices he gets to make to learn the consequences and how they affect him. Simple choices. For example, to avoid the battle of putting on his jacket before going out into the cold, he has a choice – put on the jacket or carry it in case he gets cold. This is a good one – he and I would always battle over this. I was always thinking that I was doing him a disservice by forcing him to wear his jacket, thinking that he HAD to wear his jacket. But that’s not true. By letting him decide he feels empowered in his choice, and when he realizes that it is butt cold outside he will have his jacket to put on should HE choose to do so. This was tough the first day of school…it was COLD. And he chose to carry his jacket in his bag instead of wearing it. So when he was getting out of the car I could hear the gasps from the teachers, and feel the glares…of “how could she let her son come to school in just a long sleeved shirt and a hoodie?”…sooooo I loudly declared….”Ok Jakob remember that since you chose to carry your jacket instead of wear it this morning, it is in your bag should you get cold.” It didn’t get rid of the glares but it made me feel better, and I think it made Jakob feel good too….he was able to make a choice and we didn’t fight about it.

Now, I wouldn’t allow choices to be made that would put him in danger, or harm him in any way. He would not be given the choice to leave the jacket at home, but it is his choice to be cold should he chose – it wont kill him! LOL

So we have been making choices….what to wear, either eating dinner or not – there are no more choices with dinner, if you don’t like what is for dinner you have to take one “no thank you” bite and move on. I am not making different meals for us all….one meal – eat it or don’t. The next meal is hours away….you will be hungry! Aiden is having trouble understanding this but we are working on it.

I want my boys to be able to make their own decisions, to learn the consequences of their actions, to think before they act. And I want them to learn how to do this at a young age.

I want to rethink the way I have been parenting…I want to have more days like today….because it was a really good day.

Friday, January 1, 2010

Where did the time go? I am so glad that 2009 is over…it was not my best year. I don’t want to get into all the things that went wrong this year, so lets just say that they were rough and move on!

2010 is going to be a better year….and I feel strange saying that considering Jason will be gone for most of it. He should be back for good in October, and home for a couple of weeks at the end of March. But even though he wont be here on a daily basis I am determined to make it a better year. To focus on my family, what is important, rebuilding our marriage, maintain and mend some friendships, reconnect with family, and starting taking better care of myself. Sounds pretty simple right? I am not sure about that, but I do know that I am going to do the best I can. For starters I have signed up to participate in 10 in 10….a great blogging event put together by the awesome Lori, of Recipe Girl. She and some of the other gals I adore came up with this blogging group – a support group for all of us with similar goals of getting healthy this year….10 weeks in 2010… check it out, sign up, participate and join us. It’s going to be fun.

As part of my changes in 2010 I am including my parenting techniques….I need to find something that works. Jakob is totally out of control. He and I are not getting along very well, he is hitting his little brother, talking back, being uber disrespectful….you name it – it is an issue these days! I am hoping it is a phase that we can work through together, but it is pushing my buttons and I am not handling things very well. I am acknowledging it, but stumped as to how to fix it.

So that is where we are on this first day of 2010….plans, goals, hopes, dreams, and hopefully a successful blogging year. Thank you to all my followers, and for understanding that there were constant lapses in the past, and hoping there will be less of them this year. The key is to not get bogged down or feeling overwhelmed….this year is all about simplifying.

Hope you all have your goals and dreams for 2010 set…would love to hear what they are…leave me a comment would ya?